This is ace: a 1927 letter to the Journal of Biological Chemistry from George William Clough. GW Clough had written to J Biol Chem to explain that Levene and Haller were wrong to state that he (GWC) had come to the oppposite conclusion as them – in fact, he agreed with the result that Levene and Haller had obtained. I love that J Biol Chem have this on their site. There’s lots more too – if you ever wondered about the hydrogen ion determination of normal saliva or the observations on the nature of the sugar of normal urine, then look no further (than the link at the bottom of this page).
There’s also a couple of PDFs on the J Biol Chem page linked to below that might be of interest to the McKeiths and Holfords of this world - Zinc and normal nutrition looks interesting and I reckon McKeith would love to hear about nutritive properties of the mung bean. (Incidentally, McKeith was on Jonathon Ross’s show last Friday and I was, um, less than totally impressed by her abilities. She complained that Wossy’s poo-sample-in-a-plastic-box smelt disgusting: “eurgh, I can smell that through the box”. Wossy’s poo was actually a mashed-up Mars bar. So either Mars bars smell like shit or McKeith talks shit).
Links: J Biol Chem; GW Clough (PDF of letter); Zinc PDF; Mung Bean PDF; Holford; Gillian McKeith.
Edited to add another link: The origin of homochirality.
March 4, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Always good to see a plug for a proper science journal. I have to say the modern JBC is a bit over-hefty (20-something volumes a year!), but they have a good web search facility AND it is free open access to all their stuff.
Conflicting interests: I also might feel sort of warm towards JBC because they have published several of my papers over the years.
March 5, 2008 at 11:31 am
Dr Aust, it’s dfficult to harsh on people who have shown good taste (harsh as a verb was brought to you via a recent conversation with a 6-year-old and some follow-up Googling). However, let us all nod our heads in thanks for the open access.
jdc – thanks for the papers. I am fascinated by the early C20 excitement about vitamins, minerals, discovery mixed in with new understanding etc. I have to admit, given the early date, I looked round and it seems as if Hubbell did complete her PhD and continue into the field.
March 10, 2008 at 1:24 am
Hi
Just saw your post today, right after I posted my own article about 1920s research too! (My one’s on Eugenics). I’m planning on doing a whole series of blogs on historical published work – it’s an absolute goldmine of randomness. They were much less professional in their approach, especially when putting down others…